​There’s a delightful cafe chain that was established in 2001 by Bill Collison. It is termed Bill’s Cafe and Bar.

Getting been founded in Lewes, East Sussex, it started lifestyle as a greengrocer’s but following a flood was transformed to a café.

Serving domestically sourced make and presenting menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner and teatime, it grew to become broadly well-liked and presently has all-around 75 branches in the Uk.

The magnificence of Bill’s is that it gives food items that folks like to eat, from eggs royale to outstanding pancakes topped with streaky bacon or banana, strawberries and blueberries.

There are decent soups, sharing plates, burgers and fish finger sandwiches, as well as mac’n’cheese, fish pie and steak and eggs.

In a nutshell, Bill’s gives an unchallenging menu that provides choices for each and every time of the day at a reasonable cost. It can make feeding on entertaining and the environment is habitually convivial.

There is a Bill’s just lately opened in Ludlow. It is, on the other hand, not in any way linked to, erm, Bill’s – and manages to distinguish itself by incorporating the suffix Kitchen to its title.

Dependent in the town’s former Assembly Rooms, Bill’s Kitchen area does what Bill’s made use of to when it was in its infancy. It delivers alongside one another the ideal community producers, delivers a things-you-like-to-eat menu and presents assistance with a smile in a hustling, bustling eating space.

It also has the exact keen-to-be sure to, hungry-to-succeed willingness that Bill’s – no relation – would have had when it was a get started-up and when the man with his identify earlier mentioned the doorway was hectic on web-site.

Bill’s Kitchen not only dazzles in respect of support and meals, it also serves as a potent reminder of just how superior Ludlow’s independents can be – though Ludlow extended due to the fact lost its Michelin sheen, hough a selection of rock-sound restaurants remain.

Ludlow is a spectacular city. Going for walks to Bill’s on a occupied market day exactly where stalls are stacked with refreshing, regional produce is a pleasure.

Fantastic food isn’t the only reason to check out Ludlow, which was famously described by John Betjeman as ‘the loveliest town in England’. It remains a feast for the senses with extra than 500 stated buildings, which include many that are Georgian or 50 %-timbered.

When it arrives to meals, Ludlow’s track record was created all-around a society of fantastic seasonal deliver. Though the town is effectively served by a supermarket, it also has good impartial butchers and bakers – although no candlestick maker. There are stores promoting terrific charcuterie and deli items. Persons make a excursion into city to get a new loaf, alternatively than acquiring pre-sliced, chemical-infused pap from their nearby superstore.

That ethos of supporting local producers by buying from impartial suppliers and the brilliant sector is what Bill’s Kitchen taps into. The sausages are from a regional farm, the apple juice is pressed from fruit grown in nearby orchards there are various examples of locals earning a small piece of the pie by supplying fantastic nearby develop that doesn’t charge the earth and is kind to the surroundings.

The cafe has the feeling of a college refectory. It is a large, open house with a buzzy atmosphere and the key courses for the day are cooked and stored warm at a counter in the back of the venue.

People today head to the tills to self-provide, deciding on the matters that glance wonderful, although there’s also an expert, high-good quality entrance-of-home crew that retains issues ticking over.

Tables are not booked in progress, patrons simply just enter, find a area and make them selves snug.

My friend and I met for a natter and a light lunch, ordering the Tudge’s sausage sandwich with a onion marmalade, served on light-weight, spongey ciabatta, with a easy, dressed aspect salad.

The sausages had been delicious. Confident, you can get them at a neighborhood farm store and prepare dinner them at dwelling – but then you miss out on out on the ecstasy of our release from lockdown.

Bill’s Kitchen area delivers a vivid atmosphere with people of all ages experiencing their time there. From pupils to wonderful-grandparents, it is a space in which all-comers are welcome – the ideal community taking in house.

It’s worthy of doffing our cap to the producers of the marvellous bangers served in Bill’s Kitchen area. Tudge Meats is operate by Gordon, Rosemary, Guy, Kate, Chris and Charlotte Tudge, who all have an lively involvement in the generation and selling of house-reared develop. As a family they farm just about 300 acres of Herefordshire’s great countryside. They have been rearing Berkshire pigs for additional than 20 many years and market their succulent pork solutions at farmers’ markets in the course of Shropshire, Herefordshire and beyond.

As well as Bill’s Kitchen, they also provide other, discerning dining establishments and pubs in Ludlow and its hinterland.

That signifies their pork tastes just like pork utilised to, right before the introduction of intensive farming methods.

That degree of provenance is crucial to prospects, as Invoice Sewell, owner of Bill’s Kitchen, attests: “The bacon, ham, sausages and hen that my cafes get from the Tudge household is incomparable.

“The sausages taste of pork, not absurd flavourings and the bacon makes you want to have bacon and eggs for breakfast each early morning.”

We ate cake. How could we not? I ordered a slice of peach and almond tart while my mate purchased a sticky lemon and almond friand.

And then we realised that equally had been so very good that the only secure way to navigate lunch with our friendship still in tact was by reducing them in 50 % and sharing.

Oh, and buying one more 15 friands to choose home. They. Were being. Totally. Delicious.

Bill’s Kitchen is spectacular. Housed in a splendid, gentle and ethereal room with excellent company and a fantastic front-of-household crew, it is doing Monthly bill Sewell proud.

The foodstuff is excellent, a satisfied showcase of the most effective of community develop.

It reminded me a good deal of the fantastic early days of a café on Dinham Eco-friendly, that was in the same way pleasant.

A thrilling location with a good ethos, beautiful foods and fair rates – what’s not to really like?

• Bill’s Kitchen Ludlow, Ludlow Assembly Rooms, 1 Mill Avenue, Ludlow SY8 1AZ​